Page 26 of Summer Love

CHAPTER 10

Summer

TUESDAY

5:45 a.m. Dawn hasn’t broken yet when I reach the house. The sky is gray, the air thick with that morning mist the sun hasn’t burned off. Coral Bay is still asleep—not a sound, just the waves beyond the yard and the cry of a seabird somewhere above the redwoods.

I barely slept. Three-hour time difference from New York, the crickets, the mattress, Jace, Ryan, the hundred thousand dollars, Luke not recognizing me—all of it on a loop behind my eyelids, until I gave up around five. Might as well turn the insomnia into something useful.

I walked here this morning. I set my bags down by the back door—the rest of the supplies I couldn’t carry yesterday, plus a water bottle. The key turns in the lock, the door resists, then gives, releasing a smell of must, dust, and wood. The house is dark.

I turn on my phone’s flashlight.

Come on, Summer. Get to work.

I start with the most urgent thing: making this house breathe.

Downstairs. Living room. I open the windows and push the shutters—they stick, creak, finally swing open. The blue dawn light comes in, timid. The sea air rushes through. The dust starts to dance.

The kitchen. Same motions: windows, shutters. The draft carries away a little of the musty smell. Grandma’s mug is still in the drying rack. Best Grandma in Coral Bay. I pick it up, set it in a box I left open on the counter—the one for things to keep.

The hallway. The two bedrooms. The bathroom. I move from room to room. Windows, shutters. Each room that opens is a tiny victory against time.

The stairs. Upstairs. I pass my bedroom without stopping. The door stays shut. That’s how it’ll be.

Dad’s room. Windows, shutters. The bathroom. Window. And my grandparents’ room. The last one.

The light comes in—warmer already, the blue has turned to gold. The cool morning air wraps around me. I’m about to head back when I hear music.

Not blasting, but loud enough to carry the thirty yards between the house and the school. A guitar riff, a bassline, and a melody I know by heart. “Surfin’ USA” by the Beach Boys. At six in the morning.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Jace.

I step up to the window. The Walker Surf School yard is bathed in dawn light. A Bluetooth speaker sits on the windowsill of the trailer.

The door opens and Jace steps out, shirtless, his wetsuit pulled up to the waist. I kill my phone’s flashlight with a quick flick and hold my breath.

Jace stretches facing the sea. Arms over his head, fingers laced, then a slow twist of his torso, feet anchored in the sand. His brown hair, too long, falls into his eyes. He pushes it back with one hand.

And he sings… way off-key. He butchers the lyrics of “Surfin’ USA” between stretches, like no one can hear him.

No one except the neighbor trying to sell her house.

I should close the window, turn away, go back to my boxes and my dust.

I don’t move.

He grabs his board, propped against the trailer, and crosses the yard. Flip appears out of nowhere—a white, sandy tornado that leaps around him, barks, runs in circles, stops, takes off again. Jace says something to him I can’t hear. The dog couldn’t care less and keeps running.

Another nuisance. I try to believe it, but it’s hard when you scratched said nuisance’s belly just the day before.

Jace reaches the beach. There’s no one else—just him and his dog. The water is smooth as glass. He wades into the ocean and paddles out past the first waves. Flip runs along the water’s edge, barking at nothing.

Then the first wave comes.

Jace stands. His silhouette cuts against the morning light—a dark line on the curve of the wave, fluid, precise, perfectly balanced. The water breaks around him in white spray, and for a second there’s nothing but him and the ocean.

He surfed like that at sixteen, too. Some things don’t change.